Aspirations for aspirin

Aspirin can help you get rid of a headache, relieve other common pain and reduce
inflammation. Someday it also may help you to regrow bone and other tissue.

Aspirin applied directly to the site of an experimental skull wound in mice aided
bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells to form new bone, researchers reported in the
journal Nature Medicine.

Scientists have discovered that aspirin reduces the concentration of protein
molecules called cytokines that keep the implanted stem cells from forming new
bone.

“If you block cytokines, bone regeneration will be favored,” said Dr. Songtao Shi,
a professor at the University of Southern California Ostrow School of Dentistry’s
Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology.

Dr. Shi indicated that the goal is to determine therapeutic uses for aspirin,
such as improving bone fracture healing and treating conditions such as
osteonecrosis of the jaw, through future clinical trials.

For information on how drugs for osteoporosis, which is the thinning of bone
tissue and loss of bone density over time, may damage jaw bone, possibly leading
to osteonecrosis, visit
www.ada.org/3045.aspx?currentTab=1.